Sunday Morning Blues - Charley Patton, Snooky Pryor, Professor Longhair, Junior Parker

This week on the ABC Of The Blues we go both way back into some old blues, and deep into the heart of R&B... Volumes 35 and 36.

Charley Patton
Charley was an early blues artist, from the turn of the century before there really was a formal blues movement. His would be considered in the Delta and Country blues genres today. He died in 1934 in Mississippi, where he lived all his live. He was considered a great showman playing his guitar on his knees, or behind his head. His big gravelly voice is a direct inspiration for Howlin' Wolf as well. His recording career last barely twenty years, but still produced well over a hundred recordings with him on it, many of them with groups as well as solo.

All his recordings existed on early 78s (the speed of which wasn't always 78RPM), and thus some of the songs here have a pretty high hiss presence on them. None so distracting you can't hear the music. Charley's early blues is part of the genesis of the genre, and some of it is most folksy than bluesy. All excellent guitar work though, all of it.


Snooky Pryor
A harmonica blues player from Mississippi, James Edward Pryor moved to Chicago in 1940. He didn't start recording until his discharge from the army in 1945. His claim is he started the trend of early amplified harmonicas by cupping a small mic in his hands while playing, though early recordings don't use this technique. He played continuously until his death in 2006.

The recordings here are all older ones, mostly from the 40s and 50s. They skip some of his later hits, and even a few of his early ones, in favor of digging a little deeper into the catalog to find some excellent examples of both late Delta and early Chicago Blues.

Professor Longhair
Henry Roeland Byrd is a Louisiana musician, known in his early days for the beginnings of R&B, and later on for a resurgence in Jazz in New Orleans. His early career lasted through the fifties, the early hey day of Rhythm and Blues music, but by the early 60s his career faltered. Like so many others he was pre-empted by a sharp rise in rock and roll and wasn't close enough to traditional blues to really get in on that revival. In the early 70s he started to work the Jazz Festival circuit and say a revival of his career in a different genre.

The music here focuses on his early R&B recordings. This is the early R&B which is much closer to jump and boogie blues than what later became R&B music. All good music here, including one of his major hits Go To The Mardi Gras. This is mostly what I think of when I think R&B music, a slightly faster pace, no forgetting the blues roots, but letting the Rhythm part really take over.

Junior Parker
There's conflicting information on where he was born, Junior Parker was a Blues and Gospel singer, another harmonica player. His career wasn't huge, especially since it was a short twenty years from 1951 to 1971. But he had minor success where others fell into complete obscurity, mostly on the southern blues circuit where his harmonica and gospel playing helped. He charted well with his music in the R&B charts through the mid 60s.

Like the previous Professor Longhair, a lot of the music here falls on the Rhythm side of R&B, even though Junior was considered more a straight blues musician that rhythm and blues artist. There's lots of boogie blues in his music here. Junior's voice is incredibly smooth, and just flows with the music. Like other artists in this collection, they moved past the big hits and provided some other gems from his catalog.

Next Week: Jimmy Reed, Otis Rush, Jimmy Rushing and Tampa Red.